What is the Download Limit on Netflix?

01 Jun 2017

Arguably the best online streaming service currently, Netflix introduced the much-requested offline viewing option for users some time back and it has caught up like a wildfire, but the feature does come with certain limitations.

The limitations are of two kinds — one is related to your device and another how Netflix’s content licensing works.

While most of these limitations shouldn’t really bug you if you’re not a heavy Netflix user, but if you are then here are the issues you might face and how to circumvent them.

Download Limit on Netflix

Storage Space Issues

Every TV show or movie that you download for offline viewing occupies a certain amount of space, depending on the quality, on the internal storage of your device — PC, Tab or smartphone.

Now if your Tab or smartphone is low on internal storage, you will only be able to save a limited number of movies/episodes for offline viewing.

Users with devices that have an expandable memory card slot can try to incrase the internal storage of their device too, here is how.

Licensing Issues

Although there isn’t a direct limit enforced by Netflix on the number of videos you can download, certain licensing agreements that Netflix has with individual studios and distributors might dictate the same.

If you get an errors that says, ‘You have downloaded too many videos’, then it can be that you have downloaded more videos than permitted from the same license agreement (the same TV show).

“Our content is typically licensed in bundles of titles from individual studios and distributors. There may be limits to the number of titles from the same agreement that you can download at the same time,” the company states.

The only way around this is to delete the earlier videos — which you’ve already seen — from the download library.

Depending on the titles, once you download them, they will expire after two days or a week and you’ll need an active internet connection to activate the downloads once again.

Downloads on too Many Devices

Netflix offers several subscriptions ranging from for a single device to as many as four. But if there are too many simultaneous downloads of the same TV show or movie, users might come across an error that read: ‘You have downloads on too many devices’.

This means that you’ve exceeded the permissible limit for downloading the same title on different devices.

In order to be able to download the title on more devices, you’ll first need to delete the download from an existing device or you can upgrade your streaming plan.

Note that you’ll need to restart the app after deleting the downloads so that the Netflix servers refresh the download status of your subscription and allow fresh downloads on a different device.

Update: Reportedly, in addition to the aforementioned limitations, Netflix has also started placing limits on how many times you can download the same content in a year.

Netflix has redefined the way people watch television and by giving its users to download shows and movies for watching them offline has given a great push to the popularity of the app which is being rivalled by Amazon Prime videos.